


Legends of the Road

by mific



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - No Stargate, Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Fanfiction, Fast Cars, First Meetings, Friendship, Gen, Inspired by Mad Max Series (Movies)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-05
Updated: 2016-02-05
Packaged: 2018-05-18 08:48:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5917447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mific/pseuds/mific
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Listen to me now, and I will tell you a tale from the start of it all. I will tell you how John, the Road Warrior, met Rodney the Gyrocopter Engineer, and how they became friends.</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Legends of the Road

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Apocalypse_Kree 2016. Post apocalyptic, yes, but not so much with the kree, as it's a Mad Max 2 fusion. I've called it gen, but it might be pre-slash. I realise I've set myself up for a sequel here, so we'll see if that happens. 
> 
> Here's a [pic of the V8 Interceptor](http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/mific/18732189/758235/758235_original.jpg). It's an Aussie car of course, called the Police Pursuit Special, which is why Max had one in the movie. I've transported it, and the whole Mad Max 'verse, to the Nevadan desert in an even hotter, more waterless future. 
> 
> Apologies to Ronon, but at least he got dinner.

***

 

Ronon was back behind the ridge guarding the Interceptor, and John was on foot checking the perimeter, when he saw the gyrocopter.

John frowned at the machine, seemingly abandoned in a clear sandy flat between some low hills. He wriggled forward a little, belly-down near the crest of a rise, squinting against the sun as he searched for the pilot. No one would leave a flyer sitting out like that – it had to be a trap.

Tempting, though, very tempting. It wasn’t that John didn’t love his car – the V8 Interceptor had saved his life a dozen times and like Ronon, it was family. John had always loved to fly though, back before everything ended. He’d had a small plane once in Vegas, when . . .  Yeah, well he hadn’t been able to save it, of course, through the water wars and the gang wars, the riots and the plagues. The dark years, when everything fell apart. Hadn’t been able to save anyone. Not his brother, not Nancy, not his team in the Vegas PD – Mitch and Dex, and Holland. He’d watched them all die one by one. The day he got home to find Nancy dead he’d floored the gas pedal and hurled himself out into the desert, no goal but escape, hollowed out by grief and guilt.

He hadn’t expected to make it this long, but after he’d hunted down the gang that’d killed Nancy and staked them out bleeding in the sun, he’d wandered, no real notion of what he was doing, just moving on, killing the gangs and stealing their fuel, losing himself in the road and the wasteland.

Ronon had been half-dead from thirst and too weak to fight him off.  A stray dog running wild in the desert, he’d escaped from some hell-hole even though they’d put a shock-collar on him, and chipped him. John had cut off the collar and smashed the chip, given him water and some of his own dinner—it was dogfood anyway—and Ronon had shaken his matted fur and barked once, then fallen in at John’s side and that was that. He was a fierce fighter, a big animal with a shaggy mane matted into dreadlocks. He caught the game they lived on in the lean times when John couldn’t scavenge or steal anything, not even dogfood. Mostly snakes. Snakes were good roasted, although Ronon crunched his raw.

Sometimes, John was almost . . . well, not happy, but okay. Gas in the tank and the purr of the V8 under him as the road stretched out with no other bastard in sight, Ronon riding shotgun with his head out in the wind, dreads blown back and tongue lolling from a toothy grin.

Ronon would keep the Interceptor safe until John got back there, but what to do about this damn flyer? Maybe the pilot was dead? Maybe he’d been shot or knifed and staggered off to bleed out in the hills? Pity to waste a good machine, if it was abandoned. There might be tracks – he could take a closer look.

He crept down the hill and approached the gyrocopter carefully. A faint noise alerted him about a yard away, and he froze, eyes fixed on the huge rattler wound around the drive shaft that powered the blades. _Good eating_ , John thought automatically, then, _Weird – why would a snake be coiled up in a copter like that?_

The sandy ground behind John erupted and a bizarre figure lurched up out of a hidden pit. John jumped and half-turned, the snake spooked and reared up to strike and John’s hand flashed out, grabbing it behind the head. Life at the sharp end did wonders for your reflexes.

The weird sand-covered apparition was wearing an old leather pilot’s cap with trailing, unbuckled chin straps, goggles pushed up to the top of his head, several layers of tattered shirts, cut-off shorts, and sneakers. He waved an old assault rifle at John.

“Ahaha! Oh you are so very caught in my exceptionally clever trap, you, um, you  _leather daddy_ , you!” The guy waved the rifle some more, in random flails, not properly targeting anyone. John wondered how much sand had gotten into the barrel while he was crouched in his underground hideout.

“Leather daddy?” John said disbelievingly. The rattler hissed and writhed in his fist, coils thrashing against his leg. He wished Ronon were here to snap its neck.

“Whatever.” The guy made a jerky gesture with the rifle. “Thought you’d steal my gyrocopter, huh? Well, more fool you – the tables are turned! The hunter becomes the hunted! The mighty–”

“Seriously,” John said, because this could go on all day, “You were trying to trap me with a snaked-up gyrocopter?”

“Hey, it worked!” the guy protested, scowling. “I totally trapped you with my superior plan, although I admit you’re unusually fast. Good reflexes: I hadn’t expected that. But now you’ve got a handful of snake and I’ve got a gun on you, ha!”

“Yeah, and your point is?” drawled John. He’d found bozos with guns trained on him tended to lose it when he gave them some lip. ’course he’d gotten pretty beat up across the years, with that tactic, but he kind of couldn’t help himself. Not that this guy looked like your average gangbanger. He didn’t look like anything John had ever seen before, and he sure as shit didn’t look dangerous. His exposed skin was smeared with sun cream—where in hell had he gotten that?—and was freckled and tanned in the way skin that was no good at tanning eventually got. His eyes were blue, this close, even squinted up as they were against the sun. He had good broad shoulders, even if he was too thin, with chicken legs in his ragged shorts. They were all too thin: living on dogfood and snakes would do that to you.

“My what?” snapped the gyrocopter guy, frowning. “Oh, you mean why have I trapped you so neatly, with my superior brain and cunning, using only–”

“Yeah,” John interjected, to stem another self-aggrandizing spiel. “That.”

“Fuel, of course,” the guy said with a smug, slanted grin. “You’re bound to have a vehicle nearby.” He waved the gun at the gyrocopter. “Samantha needs gas.”

“Samantha?” John rolled his eyes.

“It’s a perfectly good name, and I have fond memories of . . . well, mustn’t dwell on the past, not with all . . . ” He trailed off, mouth pulled down unhappily, then shook his head. “Anyway. Take me to your vehicle. What is it?”

“Pursuit Special – a police V8 Interceptor.”

“Nice,” said the guy. “Well, chop chop, we haven’t got all day.” He waved the gun vaguely at John again.

“And my buddy here?” John said sarcastically, thrusting the writhing snake at him. The guy fell back a step or two.

“Ha! You can’t scare me with Snake there. Took me weeks to train him, _weeks_. Paid off, though.”

“You called it ‘Snake’? Wonder what you’d’ve called your cat, back in the day – ‘Cat’?”

“Well, yeah,” said the guy, puzzled. “What else?”

John sighed. “You haven’t done this before, have you?” He eyed the ragged scarecrow figure. The guy had no clue what to do with the rifle – probably wasn’t even loaded right.

“It’s all in the planning and preparation,” the guy said airily. “Hypothesis, then experiment, then practical application. I am a genius, you know.” He stepped forward again. “Wait, hang on, throw your gun down.” He pointed his rifle at the Beretta in John’s thigh holster. John’s policy was to have one gun on display and another hidden, plus his knives, but he didn’t want to lose the Beretta so he was relieved to see the guy edge forward and snatch it up, stashing it somewhere in his tattered layers of clothing. “So much for that!” the gyrocopter pilot said, looking like he’d be rubbing his hands together in glee if one of them hadn't been occupied with a rifle. “OK, bring the snake and get moving, or I’ll shoot you and find the car myself.”

“Yeah, yeah, tough guy,” John growled, but he turned and started trudging back to the Interceptor, snake in hand. If this guy was capable of shooting anyone, John’d eat the dude’s leather pilot’s cap. Best to get the rattler back to Ronon, though.

***

Ronon was an old hand at lying low, so there was no sign of him when they got to the car.

“You do know it’s booby-trapped, right?” John remarked, rather enjoying himself.

The gyrocopter guy stopped dead, his face dismayed. “Booby-trapped?” Then his brow furrowed, eyes narrowing. “But why would you tell me? Maybe it’s not and you’re bluffing.”

John rolled his eyes. “Riiight. Because I _want_ my ride to get blown to smithereens. Yep, makes perfect sense.”

“Well, quite frankly, _nothing_ makes sense these days,” snapped the pilot. “I’m menaced by homicidal morons who zoom around in souped up hotrods and there’s hardly any water and very little food—and let me tell you, that’s a serious problem for me; I’ve come close to passing out—and the internet’s gone, and all my research. I’m nothing but a glorified mechanic, and me with two PhDs, _two_. _And_ there’s no toilet paper!”

John blinked. You didn’t often hear people bitch about the end of the world – scream abuse, beg for their lives, sure, but moan about the severe lack of ass-wiping material? Not so much. He cleared his throat. “I hear you, buddy, it’s a . . . bummer.”

“Oh hardy har,” snarled the guy, scowling. “Quit stalling. If this thing really is wired up you must have a way to defuse it.” He nudged John with the rifle. “C’mon, unless you _want_ your precious ride atomized.”

“Kinda hard with ol’ Snakey here,” John protested.

“Yeah, like you don’t always do it one-armed with a gun in the other hand,” the copter guy sneered, and damn, he was right.

John shrugged and slid to his knees by the trunk, reaching in under it with his left hand. He groped around, jaw pressed to the unpleasantly hot metal of the Interceptor, rattlesnake writhing in his right fist as he felt for the butt of the sawn-off he kept holstered right by the explosives that would blow anyone hotwiring his baby into hamburger. Mmmm, hamburger. Christ knew how long it was since he’d had a juicy burger. Cheese. God, _tomatoes_. But daydreams about food were a highway to nothing, so he shook it off. He’d almost eased the shotgun out when he felt the rifle barrel dig into his neck.

“And you can stop right there,” the pilot said, smug again. “I’ll just bet you’ve got a weapon hidden away. Ease it out very _very_ slowly and throw it on the ground.”

Cursing under his breath, John did so. Maybe the guy wasn’t as half-witted as he’d seemed. Dumb of John not to take him more seriously; he had to have survived out here somehow.

“Defuse it.” Copter guy was all business now, and for a nasty moment John thought he might actually lose the V8. That’d be it if he did: he’d be dead. He flicked the switch to turn off the explosive booby-trap and edged back, still clutching the rattler. The guy had picked up the sawn-off and turned, a gun in each hand.

“You really gonna shoot me?” John asked, his mouth dry.

The pilot squinted at him, then shook his head. “I only want the gas. You can even keep the car.”

“Leave me out here without gas, you might as well shoot me,” John said mulishly, trying to stare him down.

The pilot’s face twisted. “I’ve got no choice, damn it. I have to get back to–” He clamped his lips shut, mouth a hard, slanted line, then shook his head wearily. “Just get the gas.”

“I gotta get the container and siphon out of the trunk.” John waved at the catch. “It’s not wired or anything. Why would I blow my own arm off?”

“Yes, yes, all right, but no sudden moves.”

The rifle was trained on him, but John was counting on the guy focusing on the trunk as it opened, Sure enough, as the catch clicked he saw the barrel veer away, the guy’s attention momentarily distracted.

“Ronon!”  John yelled, and threw himself behind the car.

Ronon exploded out of the open passenger window below which he’d been lurking and took gyrocopter guy down in one bound, clamping his jaws around his gun-arm. John scrambled back and grabbed the sawn-off, then kicked the rifle out of the guy’s hand. There was a hell of a lot of snarling and yelling. John saw the guy was flat on his back, Ronon pinning him, growling furiously.

“Ow, ow, ow, get this monster off of me! It’s chewing my arm off! Ow! Get it off! Ow, you brute, you Neanderthal! Oh my God it’s huge, like a, a bear, or a–”

“He’s not a goddamn bear. Let him go, Ronon. But keep him down.” Ronon let go of the guy’s arm but stayed straddling him, teeth bared. The guy’s sleeve was ripped, but it didn't look too bad. Ronon didn’t eat people; he preferred snakes. He was looking back at John now, nostrils dilated, sniffing.

“Yeah, buddy, good work. Got you a nice juicy rattler, see?” John waved the snake, which hissed feebly. Ronon barked and wagged his tail. “You wanna catch it yourself?” John asked. Ronon barked again; he wasn’t usually a big talker but snakes got him excited.

John threw the rattler a few yards off and Ronon bounded happily after it and pounced before the snake had come to its senses. One snap from those massive jaws and the rattler’s neck was broken. Ronon settled down to his dinner, crunching happily.

“Ew,” said the guy, wrinkling his nose and glaring over at Ronon devouring the snake. He sat and rolled up several layers of dust-stained clothing to peer at his arm. “And _ow_. That brute almost took my arm off!”

“Nah, that was just a love bite. He was goin’ easy on you, didn’t even break the skin.” John picked up the rifle, put the safety on then broke open the gun and unloaded it. He snapped it back together and threw the unloaded weapon and ammo into the Interceptor’s trunk. He kept a wary eye on copter guy all the while, the sawn-off cocked and ready in his other hand. Stepping forward, he said: "Now the Beretta." Sullenly, the guy handed it over and John holstered it. 

“So. Guess the tables are turned again, now.” John frowned down at the guy, who wasn’t looking anywhere as terrified as he should have been after being set upon by Ronon and then disarmed by John. John figured he looked pretty scary, anyway. It was the hair - after months in the desert with no showers, the hair had a mind of its own.

Copter guy was looking kind of . . . lost. John grimaced and cursed himself for a goddamned fool. He sighed. “Look, I can’t keep calling you ‘copter guy’. You got a name?”

“Huh? Well of course I have a name,” the guy spluttered. “I’m Rodney. Rodney McKay.”

“Rodney,” drawled John, drawing it out a little. Yeah, he looked like a Rodney. “Gotta say, we don’t get a lot of Rodneys in these parts.”

“It’s a perfectly good name,” the guy, no, _Rodney_ said, bristling. “And what charming moniker do you go by? Judging by the hair, I’m guessing, ‘Spike’.”

“Yeah, laugh it up. I’m John.”

“Hmm. A likely story,” Rodney muttered, rubbing his bruised arm. He looked up. “So what now? Am I your monster’s main course, after his reptilian appetizer? Are you going to tie me to your car and drive through a cactus patch?”

“Hey, don’t give me ideas,” John said, but he couldn’t help grinning at the thought. There’d be yelling. So much yelling. He sobered. “You did kidnap me, after all, and you were gonna leave me out here with no gas. By rights, I should do the same to you.”

“Look,” the guy—Rodney—said urgently. “I have skills. I can fix anything. I built the gyrocopter.”

“Yeah, well, we can all fix stuff,” John said. You fixed your ride or you died. Everyone had some mechanical skill these days.

“No, no, way more than that. I have degrees, _engineering_ degrees. I can . . . look, I rebuilt a refinery. They  . . . there’s a compound, where I’m from. They make gas and sell it. It’s not like before, not like, um, _civilization_ , but it’s better than, than riding around in the desert eating _snakes_.”

“I’m partial to roast snake, myself,” John said easily. A compound, huh? He was a loner so no way he'd join up with them, but maybe he could swap Rodney and the copter for some gas. Be nice to fill the tank without having to kill anyone for it, for a change.

“They have water!” Rodney said desperately. “There’s a well we dug with the drilling gear. Artesian water. Vegetables! Showers!”

“Tempting, but I dunno if I can trust you, Rodney. They’d probably just double cross me.”

“No, no, really, they’re not like that. The leaders—Teyla and Halling—they’re peaceable. Well, in a stick-fighting kind of a way. But they’re trustworthy. They’re just trying to get by, like the rest of us. They were from a place called Athos. They were attacked by those Wraith bastards, lost their homes and everything.”

Ronon snarled and John’s lip curled. Of all the gangs he hated the Wraith most. Psychopathic bastards the lot of them, inhuman. He turned his head to one side and spat.

He looked down at Rodney, considering. “So if this place is so great, why aren’t you holed up there, huh? Why are you out here making like a highwayman?”

“I was scouting, and yes, that was idiotic of me, and I’m sorry. Teyla’s going to be so pissed. Disappointed. God, I’m really in for it when we get back there. I’d rather be menaced by your brutish hound than face Teyla’s _disappointment_. But I flew too far and I ran of fuel. I panicked! I’m sorry. I wouldn’t have . . . I’d have left you _some_ gas.”

“Yeah, right.” John sucked on his lower lip. “So how we gonna get there. I just drive on up an’ they’ll let me right in?”

“Well, no,” Rodney admitted.

No one was that dumb these days. Especially a nice cushy compound sitting on a goldmine like a refinery and an artesian well – it was a miracle the Wraith hadn’t ripped them to shreds already. John figured they must have some heavy-duty defenses around that compound.

“We can take the gyrocopter,” Rodney said. “They’ll let the gyrocopter in.”

John glared down at him. “I’m not leaving Ronon behind. Or the Interceptor.” Ronon lifted his head from the coil of snake he was chewing and growled agreement.

“Oh hell. Look, I don’t know – but we’ll figure _something_ out, as long as we take the copter with us. It dismantles – I can take it apart and reassemble it when we get there. We can strap it to the roof of your car.”

John frowned. “No more crap with pulling guns on me?”

Rodney shook his head, staring up, his eyes huge and blue. “Promise.” He stretched out a hand. “Help me up?”

John snorted, but grasped his arm and hauled him to his feet. Rodney started brushing dust and sand off his clothes. John whistled for Ronon, who snatched up the rest of his snake and leapt back into the car through the passenger window. He hunkered down on the front seat and resumed chewing.

“Oh,” said Rodney, frowning. “ I thought I’d be riding . . . ”

“Up front?” John grinned and stowed the sawn-off back in its hiding place, then slammed the trunk shut. “Nah, that’s Ronon’s place.  ’sides, you’re in disgrace. You get to ride in the back seat with the gas cans.”

“Oh, wonderful,” Rodney said sourly. John slid the driver's seat forward and he clambered into the crowded back seat, pushing gear aside to make space for himself. “Well, it’ll be your fault if I get carsick, that’s all I’m saying.” He fidgeted about, moving tools and supplies, keeping up a grumbling commentary about John’s pack-rat tendencies and appalling lack of spatial organization. 

“Yeah, yeah,” John said, settling into his seat, not really listening. The muttered litany of complaints from the back seat was oddly soothing.

It was good to be back behind the wheel. He eased the V8 out of the canyon where he’d parked her and headed around the base of the hills toward the flats where they’d left the gyrocopter.

Rodney leaned forward between the seats. “Actually, this isn’t half bad. It’s not as good as flying, but this is a pretty sweet ride.”

John patted the dash. “She’s a good old thing. Reliable. And fast.”

Rodney nodded earnestly. “Yes, yes, very important. It’s . . . it’s kind of nice to have, ah, companions on the road, for a change. I mean, the flyer’s great of course, but it’s a one-man operation when I’m scouting, you know? So . . . buddies, that’s a change. Even if one of them is a hairy monster.” Ronon’s tail thumped on the seat. “And the other’s a mutt.”

John turned away so Rodney wouldn’t see him smirk. He tried to sound stern. “Hey, wise guy. Any more cracks like that and you can _walk_ back to the goddamn compound. And cut out that buddy crap. This is a short-term business partnership, that’s all.”

“Yes, yes, of course,” Rodney said hurriedly. “I get it. You’re a, a lone wolf, a . . . _Road Warrior_.”

“Yeah,” John said, grinning. “That’s me, all right.” He floored the gas pedal and dust billowed out behind them.

Road Warrior – it had a good a ring to it. Maybe he’d paint it on the Interceptor.

 

***

 

_There are many stories of John, the Road Warrior. Of John and his faithful companion Ronon. Many tales of Rodney, the gyrocopter engineer who befriended him, and how John tried not to care again after all he'd lost, how he tried and failed. Protecting others ran deep in him, for he’d been an officer of the law, when there was law, in the days before._

_I am Teyla of Athos. Shall I tell you of our darkest hour, when the gangs besieged us? Kolya’s hard-faced raiders and the fearsome Wraith who smeared themselves with chalk, faces alien behind masks or painted patterns, long bleached hair streaming behind as they drove swarms of vehicles that whined like hornets and bristled with weapons._

_Shall I tell you how John Sheppard, with his friends Ronon and Rodney, saved us all from Kolya and the Wraith? How they brought us out of the desert. How they brought us to the city._

_But that is a tale for another time . . ._

 

***

 


End file.
